It's All Universal

I have rearranged my work schedule this week so I can have Friday off. Lucy is in her first class play, "The Very Lonely Firefly." I don't think she has any lines to say, but she is one in a group of fireflies. Of course I remembered at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday (after the absolutely awesome season premiere of NCIS; can't WAIT to see how this storyline plays out) that I needed to have her costume at school on Wednesday for a dress rehearsal.* I had a black leotard and tights for her and that was about it. So I headed to Target where they wanted $9.99 for wings. $9.99. How often do you wear wings anyway? I can't imagine you could get $10 worth of wear out of them (can you tell my parents were born during the Depression?) And they had only pink. Then I went to the Dollar Tree where I struck gold. They had sort of day-glo green/yellow wings, a matching tutu, and matching slippers. We were in business. Lucy was so excited the next morning as I packed her costume all together.

When I picked her up from school, she slumped down in the backseat. "How was the dress rehearsal?" I asked. "How was your costume?"

"People laughed at it," she answered. "What kind of people?" I asked. "BOYS," she said scathingly. "I changed into my costume in the bathroom, then I came out with the other fireflies. And Chase said, 'Look at Lucy, ha ha ha,' and then he and a bunch of other boys laughed at me."

Of course I felt terrible for her, but I explained that that is just boys. That's their nature. "Well, I hate boys," she exclaimed, "except Daddy." OK, hopefully it will stay that way for awhile, right? But I reminded her that there were plenty of nice boys in the world, like Stephen and Andrew and her boy friends from her pre-school class (who, by the way? One of her favorites, Michael, I observed the other day. He is in a different class than Lucy, but they line up next to each other before school every day. As I was sitting in the carpool lane, I saw Michael step out of his line, go over and give Lucy a big hug. It was the cutest thing.)

She wasn't particularly appeased, so I told her that I was very sorry boys had laughed at her costume, and if she was uncomfortable with anything about it, we could change it. No, she liked her costume. She just hates boys. I went on to tell her that at some time or another, everyone has someone else say mean things to me. It's just life. Like on my very first day of first grade, I walked in the door of the classroom and a girl yelled out, "There's Alice Nichols in the same baby dress she always wore to kindergarten!" Or like my friend Anna who had a boy tell her in second grade, "You know, you'd be OK if you weren't black." Lucy was horrified by both those examples, and then I said, "Besides, who tells us who we really are, anyway?" "Jesus," she answered. "That's right," I answered, "so you can lift up your head because He tells you who you are, and that's what really matters."

Interesting segue, because speaking of Anna, who I hadn't seen for ages, I planned to meet up with her that evening. I got an invitation to the medspa opening at the women's clinic where my doctor is. Anna's an aesthetician (try saying and/or typing that fast) who works at a salon but wants to get into the medspa field, so I immediately thought of inviting her. Plus, the invitation said, "Elegant appetizers and desserts" so you know I was all over that one.

Before I could leave in the evening though, I had to say my goodbyes to the girls. I had prepped them for this, but that part is never easy. Elaine usually isn't too bad, but I'm lucky to get out of the house without Lucy crying. She didn't last night, but she did hang onto my arm and my neck and begged me not to go and/or take me with her, and basically they both made me feel like some neglectful mother on the way out to my nightly gig at Caesar's Palace while I leave them to fend for themselves on Top Ramen. As an author I love, Anne George, says, "Guilt: it's a universal chick thing."

But I got out finally, and it was a great time. Anna and I visited the various displays for laser treatments, facials, microderm abrasion, chemical peels, etc. We got to one that was promoting products made from coffee flowers or something anti-oxidant like that. The woman gave us all a sample and then went into her sales pitch. She got to the part where a few-ounce bottle cost $110.00, when Anna coughed discreetly and we ran back down to the food area, giggling. "I would love to see Darren's face if I came home having spent $110 on face lotion," I said. "I'm annoyed that they raised the price of my Neutrogena anti-wrinkle cream to $12 at Super Wal-Mart." Anna said, "I might, might spend $110 on a pair of shoes. Maybe. And then I would run every day to the mailbox, obsessively, so I would get the bill before Gil could ever see it."

We spent the rest of the night catching up and sampling the elegant hors d'oevres and desserts and listening to a guy render Eric Clapton and Pink Floyd classically on guitar. Because this blog is all about the food, here's a sampling. There were lots of things on skewers: teriakyi chicken, fresh mozzarella and cherry tomatoes, tortillini in pesto, fruit with homemade caramel sauce. Then there was a tray of various bruschetta-type things--roasted pepper, olives, artichokes, salmon. Then there were a lot of tiny desserts--chocolate chip cheesecake, white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, seven-layer, white fudge, and more. The free food and hanging out with Anna was worth the whole trip.

Then on the way home, at 9:10, I remembered that today is Johnny Appleseed Day at school, and I was supposed to send apples and apple cider with Lucy to class so I stopped at the grocery store to get that.*

Tomorrow afternoon I'll have pictures up of Lucy in The Very Lonely Firefly play. And if some kindergarten boys accidentally trip and fall or some other minor harm comes to them, I had absolutely nothing to do with it.


*Some call it procrastination. I call it "pacing myself."